Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
I don’t know why, but in 2019 it seems like there are more earth-moving air-quality-news-related items than usual. And, the year isn’t even over yet. The American Lung Association in April issued its latest findings of the quality of America’s air in its 20th annual “State of the Air” report as well as in a … Read more
California is America’s 31st state. Synonymous with opportunity the Golden State is and has been that way since day 1. But California is also a land of contrasts: The highest of highs – Mount Whitney (14,505 feet in elevation); the lowest of lows – Death Valley (at a -280 feet); and the in-between – all … Read more
The below Sept. 9, 2019 press release from the Natural Resources Defense Council. General Electric, which boasts of being a clean energy leader, is quietly doubling down on the dirty energy of the past with plans to equip more than a dozen new coal-fired power plants in countries like Cambodia, Kenya, Poland, Pakistan and Vietnam, … Read more
A sign of the times? The Navajo Generating Station (NGS), a coal-fired power plant located in the northern Arizona community of Page, is shutting down. Moreover, the 78-mile Black Mesa & Lake Powell (BM&LP) Railroad – built to haul the black carbonaceous rock between the mine and plant – is likewise itself terminating operations. Peabody … Read more
Eliminating restrictions on damaging and dangerous methane pollution at oil and gas sites nationwide, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes to do, would be costly. It was just this past Thursday that the current EPA proposed doing just that. The Center for Biological Diversity (Center) in its “Trump Proposes Killing Methane Pollution Rule” … Read more
I can imagine a place like a hospital site that in preparing the land for the building thereof, water is generously spread around in an effort to keep fugitive dust down. So, it would seem ironic or highly incongruous then that after the facility is built that found is the blowing of said dust, dirt, … Read more
The Amazon is burning. The fire is of staggering proportions and was deliberately set. Irreplaceable rainforest land being cleared for, what, so it can be farmed, developed?! Seventy-five thousand: The number of Brazilian fires this year alone! Seven-thousand-two-hundred: Nearly that many square miles (more than 4.6 million acres) burned this year so far. Add to … Read more
Today’s thread is a follow-on to “Why moving dedicated HSR funds to California rail ‘bookends’ projects is a bad idea.” Interest in creating a Bakersfield-to-Merced commuter-rail service in the San Joaquin Valley, was budding long before California Proposition 1A (the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century) was voted on and … Read more
Fortunately, the news is mostly good: Greenhouse gas emissions in California fell. Transportation is one trouble spot, however – the main one. Speaking directly to this, on Aug. 12, 2019, the California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board (ARB) released its California Greenhouse Gas Emissions for 2000 to 2017: Trends of Emissions and Other Indicators … Read more
Information below is from the “Record-High Share of Californians Concerned About Global Warming Making Wildfires More Severe,” Jul. 29, 2019 Public Policy Institute of California press release. The entire press release can be read here. In the wake of devastating wildfires over the past few years, seven in ten Californians (71%) say they are very … Read more